Making Fun Becomes First Publisher of Social Games

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The company is actively seeking more development partners.

By Nicole Tanner

The social gaming landscape thus far has been dominated by developer/publisher combination companies. Those like Zynga and Playfish finance, develop, and publish their own games. But new company Making Fun is taking on a more traditional publisher model by working with external developers to make games. Making and Fun and IGN are both owned by News Corporation.

"As gaming platforms mature, Publishers emerge to assist talented developers who lack sufficient funds to bring their dreams to full fruition," said Making Fun CEO John Welch. "Explosive growth in the social games space has attracted substantial game development talent, raising the costs to effectively compete. Making Fun provides funding and other essential services to enable our partners to focus their energy on making great games."

Making Fun's full plan involves financing, technological and industry assistance, hosting, and marketing for developers who want to make social games. The company currently has three publishing deals in place, but is actively seeking more.

The company is helmed by John Welch, who previously co-founded casual game publisher PlayFirst (famous for the Diner Dash franchise) and CTO Lee Crawford, who previously co-founded virtual economy company Twofish.